Congress general secretary Shakeel Ahmed on Wednesday recycled his old controversial statement saying the BJP and ISI gain during riots. Shakeel had in October last year made an identical remark after party’s vice-president Rahul Gandhi’s claim that Intelligence agencies in Pakistan were approaching some victims of the Muzaffarnagar riots to lure them to terrorism.
At the AICC briefing, Ahmed, who is general secretary and in-charge of Punjab, also alleged three Ministers of Punjab are involved in drug racket and demanded a CBI probe. He alleged one of the Ministers Vikram Majithia was the kingpin and related to the Badals. In the wake of recent Muzzafarnagar controversy, Ahmed reiterated his tweet comment few months ago drawing a parallel between the country’s principal Opposition party BJP and Pakistan’s ISI. “Wherever riots take place, India’s BJP and Pakistan’s ISI rejoice,” Ahmed said. He, however, denied he was comparing the BJP and the intelligence agency.
Ahmed was responding to senior Samajwadi Party leaders attributing political motives to the Delhi police claim that operatives of the Pakistan-based terror outfit leT were trying to recruit men in riot-hit Muzaffarnagar in Uttar Pradesh. UP Minister Azam Khan had on Tuesday said the lashkar link in Muzaffarnagar was brought up to vindicate Rahul Gandhi’s comment in October that he had been told by intelligence officers about the ISI reaching out to young men from riot-affected families.
Grilled by the reporters who cited the 1984 anti-Sikh riots in the aftermath of the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s killing as proof that the Congress too did not have a spotless record, Ahmed retorted, “Even when Indira Gandhi’s body was lying in her house, Rajiv Gandhi went around Delhi appealing for peace.”
The BJP retaliated with its spokesperson Nirmala Sitharaman tweeting: “During 1984 anti-Sikh riots and massacre, the BJP protested & the Congress ‘rejoiced’ (IJ)! Any reconsideration nowIJ In the Valley’s ethnic cleansing of Kashmiri Pandits the ISI ‘rejoiced’, the BJP protested and the Congress was helpless.”